“Do you ever wish you could be someone else?”
“Like who?” My dinner guest gnawed on a piece of overcooked garlic bread.
“I dunno. Someone better-looking, richer, higher-functioning.”
“Nope.” He put the garlic bread onto his plate and used his knife to separate the gooey interior from its charred and ragged edges. “If I turned into someone else, I’d lose all my life experiences.”
“Omigod, I haven’t thought of that.” I stuck my fork into a leaf of emerald-green lettuce and raised it to my moist, glistening lips. “I do love my memories.” I crammed the leaves of romaine into my mouth, biting down with a crunch. Italian dressing dribbled down my chin.
Leaning forward with a twinkle in his cerulean-blue peepers, my guest asked, “Which memory do you like the best?”
I knew he wanted me to say something like “The time we stood on the sidewalk in front of that Greek restaurant and you said, ‘Want to go get a doughnut across the street?’ or ‘The time we strolled along Summit Avenue gazing at holiday lights.’” But instead I said, “The time the dog got on the bus in the middle of a blizzard.”
My guest leaned forward and plucked a grape from his fruit salad, popping it into his mouth. He’s heard the story of the dog on the bus a million times before, but he knows how to act like it’s the first time I’ve mentioned it. “Tell me the story of the dog on the bus.”
I wiped the dressing from my chin. “It was the last bus running from Minneapolis to Duluth on Christmas Eve, 1975. Almost no one else was on the bus besides me and the driver.” I leaned forward for emphasis and widened my eyes. “Suddenly, a blizzard hit.”
My guest stuck his fork into a mound of spaghetti and swirled it around. “Good sauce tonight.” He tidily stuffed the spaghetti into his mouth.
I leaned back and ran my finger around the rim of my glass of sparkling white pear juice. “The driver kept plowing forward. The blizzard got worse and worse.”
My guest put down his fork. “Can you pass me more spaghetti, please?”
I handed my guest the serving platter of sauce-drenched, stringy pasta.
“Most of the other vehicles had pulled over, “ I said, “and some had careened into the ditch. The driver kept stopping to pick up people stranded by the side of the road. At one point a woman and three little kids climbed onto the bus.”
My guest grasped the spaghetti tongs and carefully transferred a tangle of pasta onto his plate. He handed the platter back to me.
I set the platter onto the table. “The driver kept plowing down the highway. Then, suddenly he stopped and opened the door of the bus. A dog climbed onto the bus and sat in the seat directly behind the driver.”
My guest nodded and took a sip of water from a red-striped tumbler.
“Both the driver and the dog acted like everything was normal.” I used my fingers to pluck a single strand of spaghetti from my plate, pursed my lips, and sucked the pasta into my mouth.
My guest swirled the ice cubes in his glass and set the tumbler back down. “Maybe everything WAS normal. There are lots of explanations for the dog getting onto the bus.”
I swallowed the spaghetti strand whole. “Like what?
“Like maybe the dog belonged to the bus driver.”
I cupped my chin in the palms of my hands. “I don’t think so. They didn’t even greet each other.”
“Maybe the dog was with the woman and three kids, except it got separated from them because it went to find help.”
“Nope. The dog ignored them too. It just sat there, staring straight ahead, its beautiful, furry occipital lobes towering over the back of the seat.”
My guest arose and took his empty plate over to the sink, easing it noiselessly into the stainless steel basin. “What happened to the dog when the bus got to Duluth?”
I shrugged. “Nothing happened to the dog.”
“Well, something must have happened to the dog. It couldn’t just stay on the bus.”
“Actually, it did stay on the bus.” I gazed dreamily into the flickering flame of a battery-operated banquet candle. “The dog keeps riding that bus around and around in that blizzard, the same way it has for the last 49 years.”
It’s my memory. I get to do anything I want with it.